coal imports has been declining over the last three years. During 2014-15 India imported 217.78 million tonnes of coal which declined to 203.95 million tonnes in 2015-16 and further to 190.95 million tonnes in 2016-17.

The trend of fall in import of coal continued unabated in 2017-18 and during April-June 2017-18, 52.74 million tonnes of coal was imported against 57.38 million tonnes in the corresponding previous period registering a 8.1% fall, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said citing figures of the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics.

Government today said it is aiming to bring down to “zero” thermal coal imports of power PSUs like NTPC in the current fiscal, a move that would reduce the country’s import bill by around Rs 17,000 crore.